All,

My first cuttings arrived in the mail today and I am really excited to get started! After reading a few articles, a couple threads on this forum, and watching a few videos online here is a step by step of what I am thinking of doing:

1. Trim the previously cut ends of the cutting back about an 1/8th of an inch using sterilized pruners
2. Rinse the cuttings with a 10% bleach solution to kill any mold spores/bacteria then rinse with clean water
3. Hydrate some sphagnum moss, wring out excess moisture then "Sandwich" the cuttings between two roughly 1 inch layers of moist sphagnum moss in a plastic shoe box
4. Place the shoe boxes on top of my dresser where the temp. is consistently between 71 and 73 degrees.
5. Open the boxes once per day to let in some fresh air
6. Pray for roots!
7. If and when I see roots, carefully pot the cuttings in clear plastic cups with plenty of drain holes in 100% perlite and place in clear plastic storage tote (storage tote complete with full spectrum florescent lights and maintained at about 70% humidity and 70 degrees F.

I am right there with you buddy.  I've got a dozen cuttings in sphagnum in plastic bags hanging out in a heated chamber (72-78 degrees), along with some other cuttings that I'm trying to root in straight perlite.  I'm about 6 or 7 days ahead of you, so hopefully whatever luck I've got, you'll see a week later (or sooner for all I care, as long as mine root too!)

One thing I'll say, I felt like even though my sphagnum was rung out well, it was still too wet.  I ended up squeezing it between a paper towel to really bring down the wetness of it.  Of course, I have no idea if that helped/hurt anything, as I've never done this before, but the general consensus is that too much moisture is a bad thing, I think.

First time's a charm, let's hope?  Best of luck to you.  I'll hang in on this thread and see if I can learn anything.  If you haven't checked it out yet, you might spend a couple quality hours in the search function.  There's some good stuff in there.

Out of curiosity, what all are you trying to root?

Glad to hear Im not the only one lol.  I was a little unsure on the sphagnum moisture too, and now that you mention it, I may need to do the same thing.

I ordered 3 Italian Honey cuttings on ebay and the seller was nice enough to include 4 Sweet George cuttings as well so I put them all in the moss. We'll see how they do. I sure could use some beginners luck.Ill keep you posted!  If you don't mind, Im curious to hear how the cuttings you have in Perlite do.

Theo

Good luck Theo... Try not to check on them to often, you'll make yourself go crazy, haha...

IMHO you could put them right into perlite and the humidity chamber at 80f.
I don't do any cleaning or sterilization before I put them in.

Sounds like you should do fine. I keep a retired toothbrush around for giving my cuttings a scrub when they are in the bleach.

I did take a look at your post on the other day and it looks like a great method.  Thanks a bunch for posting that by the way, really cool.  I think ill use your method on my next attempt. I have a few more cutting on the way.

I wouldn't do #1, either.  Most people cut the top close to a node and the last thing you want to do is damage a node.  Long fiber sphagnum moss has 2 drawbacks.  The first is the wetness issue and the second is that the roots grow into it and trying to get them off breaks them.  So when you put the roots in a pot and water the plant the sphagnum holds a lot of water next to the roots and can rot them.   To avoid this take the cuttings out when the roots are short.  Have you seen this page?  It gives you the principles to follow.  I use the alternative method linked to from there.  I also score the bark at the bottom and use some clonex.

Best of luck no matter how you do it!

My top rooting advice: don't overthink it or try too hard, the more you try it seems the more can go wrong.

I use a method similar to Rich's - 100% perlite in cups in a humidity bin sitting over a floor vent. It keeps the temps around 80. Personally I think using moss then putting cuttings with fragile roots in cups with perlite will lead to unnecessary failures. The less you disturb the cuttings and the initial roots they form the better. I like the cups because it allows the cutting to develop a nice strong root mass that is left alone until you are ready to pot them up. THE BIGGEST problem is too much moisture though. Even 100% perlite can be kept too wet. When I first put the cuttings in the cups I give them a good soaking and let all the excess water run out. You have to be careful of perlite with too much dust in it as it will stay too wet. I don't add any more water for at least a week and that's only if I see the cutting bark is dry under the perlite surface. The cups lets you see the moisture level with the condensation on the side. Its usually just the top half of the cup that dries out after a week so not much water is needed at all.. just enough to dampen that area. When the cuttings have rooted well and have started leafing out I slowly adapt them to the dryer room air over the course of a week. Once fully acclimated outside the humidity bin I put them under grow lights still in the cups. If the roots look strong enough at that point I pot them in 6" pots with (pre-dampened - not soaking) potting soil with added perlite. I enclose the pot with a nylon knee high stocking and use a twist tie to close it around the cutting. This keeps the gnats out.

Good luck :)

Good luck, Theo!  I'm rooting some now, too.  You are about a week behind me.  My only tips are things you've already heard:  watch the moisture, and be careful not to break off those new roots.